Copthorne Effingham had welcomed a ‘royal guest’, during the filming of Season 4 of the Netflix series The Crown in 2019/2020. Award-winning actress Olivia Colman, who portrays Queen Elizabeth in Seasons 3 and 4 of the critically acclaimed series was at the hotel in Effingham Park, to film scenes for the eighth episode.

In the episode set in 1985, Queen Elizabeth and then-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (portrayed by Gillian Anderson in the series) were in the Bahamas for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The scene was actually filmed at Copthorne Effingham’s Millennium Conference Centre!

Even though the scene took place in a tropical setting, in reality, it was raining cats and dogs during the shoot in November! Guest Services Manager Mr Marc Hunen also said that behind the scenes outside the hotel, trees were getting blown almost sideways by the wind, despite a pseudo tropical setting within the indoors filming location.

Though the shoot took only one day, the crew had arrived early and checked into the hotel as the total set-up and teardown took about five days in total. On the shoot day, the cast, such as Olivia Colman, also had rooms to use as dressing rooms during the filming.

For the pre-filming preparation, the crew had rented out the hotel’s croquet lawn. A marquee was set up for use as a make-up space and staff canteen. The marquee was meant to be removed the day after shooting ended, but because of all the heavy rain all week and the weight of the marquee and furniture inside, the floor had sunk into the saturated ground! Unfortunately, it ended up taking over a week for the marquee to be removed!

Other than being the filming location, a Copthorne Effingham staff also had the chance for fifteen minutes of fame. Meetings & Events Operations Manager Mr Piotr Kruszewski was asked to participate as an extra as one of the interviewers in the scene background. Sadly though, he did not make it past the cutting room floor!